An exchange is a central marketplace with established rules and regulations where buyers and sellers, referred to as traders, meet to trade. Some exchanges, referred to as open outcry exchanges, operate using a trading floor where buyers and sellers physically meet on the floor to trade. Other exchanges, referred to as electronic exchanges, operate by an electronic or telecommunications network. An electronic exchange typically provides computerized matching between traders. Some example electronic exchanges include European Exchange (“Eurex”), London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (“LIFFE”), Chicago Mercantile Exchange (“CME”), and Chicago Board of Trade (“CBOT”).
With respect to electronic exchanges, traders connect to an electronic trading platform by way of a communication link through their client devices. Once connected, traders select which tradable objects they wish to trade. As used herein, the term “tradable object” refers to anything that can be traded with a quantity and/or a price. It includes, but is not limited to, all types of traded events, goods and/or financial products, which can include, for example, stocks, options, bonds, futures, currency, and warrants, as well as funds, derivatives and collections of the foregoing, and all types of commodities, such as grains, energy, and metals. The tradable object may be “real,” such as products that are listed by an exchange for trading, or “synthetic,” such as a combination of real products that is created by the user. A tradable object could actually be a combination of other tradable objects, such as a class of tradable objects.
The messages communicated between the electronic exchange and the client device include market updates containing market information, as well as orders, quotes, acknowledgements, fills, cancels, deletes, cancel and replace, and other well-known financial transaction messages. Although the amount or type of market information published by each exchange often differs, there are some standard pieces of information. Market information may include data that represents just the inside market which refers to the lowest sell price (best ask) and the highest buy price (best bid) at particular point in time. Market information may also include market depth, which refers to quantities available at the inside market and can also refer to quantities available at other prices away from the inside market.
Once the client device receives the market update message, the contained market information may, for example, be processed and displayed on the trading screen for a trader to utilize. Although traders use the market information in a variety of ways, traders typically prefer the market information to be displayed in an efficient and useable format. Upon viewing the market information, traders can take certain actions including sending buy or sell orders to the electronic exchange, adjusting existing orders, deleting orders, or otherwise managing orders.
Maintaining a high level of performance and providing the most up to date market information as quickly as possible has become a challenge for most current trading systems. It is desirable for traders to have the most up to date and accurate market information available at all times. Fortunately for them, market updates from the electronic exchange are often provided to the trader in near real time. However, due to the massive amounts of market updates received from an electronic exchange or a network device, the central processing unit (CPU) capabilities at network and client devices have been jeopardized and extremely overwhelmed. Instead of updating the trading screen with near real-time market information, many current trading systems have succumbed to an increased delay in processing and updating the graphical display. In an industry where speed and accuracy are of the utmost importance, receiving delayed and inaccurate market information can be extremely detrimental to a trader and can possibly cost the trader hundreds, thousands, or even millions of dollars.
It is therefore beneficial to provide a trading system that offers a more efficient method for providing market information to a trader in an electronic trading environment.